The Snow Storm

These words are written for you, writes John Storyteller: the doors were locked out of fear, yet still the Christ appeared. The One who had said to them, ‘Peace…Shalom…Peace I leave with you, my Peace I give to you…I do not give to you as the world gives…let not your hearts be troubled…” he had told them before the crisis struck. Yet still, the doors were locked for fear of whatever lay outside the safety of those locked doors. [John 20:19-31]

Weeks ago, at the beginning of what we, for lack of better words, now call the ‘new normal,’ I had opened the tailgate of the car, and was putting on a mask and the now ever useful nitrile gloves, preparing to go into CVS looking for things like hand sanitizer. When I turned around to shut the tailgate, there she was. An Asian woman perhaps in her 50’s, hands outstretched as if about to receive communion, looking at me with pleading eyes, and said, ‘Hands…gloves….?’ It was a moment in time that broke open and through the routine and mundane dimensions of what we were there to do. Her words cut to my heart at its deepest place. We were no longer two people in a CVS parking lot. We were two people who despite our physical location were hiding behind locked doors out of fear. And in that moment Christ appeared. All calculations that had begun to flood my mind about how many gloves are in this box and how many days will I need to put them on and how long will my supply last evaporated in the real presence we were experiencing. My head immediately nodded yes, yes of course, and I turned to take another pair out of the box, walked over to her and handed them to her outstretched hands, and in that gesture it was Holy Communion with a new sacrament, a new understanding of the Peace he gives that is not like the world gives, and for just that moment our troubled hearts were stilled. It was a moment of At-One-Ment. We were one and the One who comes to unite us was there as well. There was Shalom, there was Peace as her head bowed in thanksgiving for a simple pair of nitrile gloves that could for now still the fears of what might be lurking inside CVS that morning. And I remember thinking at the time, this is where we are headed – a world where a pair of gloves is in such short supply that we will all, ordinary people, care givers, first responders, nurses, surgeons, respiratory therapists, be standing in ordinary parking lots, hands outstretched, fear and pleading in our eyes, able to only manage two words, “hands…gloves”?

Perhaps it has settled in by now: we have been wounded. All of us. I never understood those Zombie Apocalypse movies until now as I venture out from behind the closed doors of Stay At Home and see people avoiding one another with gloves, masks, bandanas and every other contrivance, out foraging and searching for things we have always taken for granted would be on the now empty shelves. I think of Thomas who missed the appearance of his risen Lord the night of that first Easter. The others tell him, “We have seen the Lord!” Thomas wants physical evidence. "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

Thomas is fearless. Wherever he was that first Easter evening, he was not hiding behind locked doors! And now a week later he is still fearless. Jesus appears and again says, “Peace be with you.” Then turning to Thomas, he says, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not be unfaithful, but faithful." Thomas sees the wounds and declares, “My Lord, and my God.” Storyteller John says these words are written for us. They are written for all of us who face the woundedness that surrounds us on all sides – and then like Thomas, remain faithful. Remain Hopeful. Remain One with he who has been raised and returns to raise us with him. Emmanuel. God with us.

These words are written for us. Now. Here. Today. We are those who are fearful hiding behind locked doors. Yet, Jesus comes to us to be with us, to offer us Peace, to breathe on us the breath of new life and the spirit of God. And we are Thomas, courageous enough to face into the immensity of the crisis, look at our wounds and still declare his faithfulness – the fulness of his faith. A faith grounded in Hope and Love. A faith that calls us to reach out our hands to reveal our wounds. A faith that calls us to reach out our hands in Faith, Hope and Love, and to find ways to be Sacrament for one another, even if is in an ordinary pair of nitrile gloves.

I keep seeing that woman at CVS with her hands reaching out for something to calm her fears. In this time in which we are separated from receiving The Sacrament we are now to become sacrament for one another, and all others. And I keep reading this poem by Marie Howe which somehow manages to see this moment we share with Thomas in the ordinary – while walking through the snow, seeing deer tracks and somehow hearing these words that were written so we will know Jesus is the Christ and that remaining faithful like Thomas we do and will and will always have life in its fulness in his name.

The Snow Storm by Marie Howe

I walked towards the river, and the deer had left tracks

deep as half my arm, that ended in a perfect hoof

and the shump shump shump my boots made walking made the silence loud.

And when I turned back towards the great house

I walked beside the deer tracks again.

And when I came near the feeder: little tracks of the birds on the surface

            of the snow I’d broken through.

Put your finger here, and see my hands, then bring your hand and put it in my side.

I put my hand down into the deer track

            and touched the bottom of an invisible hoof.

Then my finger in the little mark of the jay.

[from The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, W.W.Norton, New York:2008]

A Coda: A white dove, a pigeon really, has been coming to visit at home since the beginning of the Stay At Home order. White Bird comes two or three times a day. I toss out a little seed and she comes running over for more. I hold out a handful of seed and she pecks at it in my hand. I cannot reach out to touch others, but I can reach out to this beautiful and quite mysterious bird. Just as Marie Howe reaches into the deer track to touch “the bottom of an invisible hoof.” Sometimes our only contact with the Holy is in moments like Howe describes. When the “shump shump shump” of our boots make “the silence loud.” Faith, Hope and Love in the Time of Coronavirus. Here’s the paradox. Our healing lies in our woundedness which has been touched by the One who says, “I am with you always, to the end of the age. My Peace I give to you.”